


Forever and a Day

by CookieDoughMe



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Finale spoilers, Fix-it fic, Gen, Haven Finale, Haven Forever, I made myself cry again, series finale rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 10:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8010052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A simple fix-it fic for the Haven finale, with only a few small (but significant) changes from canon. It’s written in part as a base for other stories; to provide a setting to write post-series, but with all the characters still around.</p>
<p>Starts mid-way through the final episode, 502.26: Forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever and a Day

Audrey is alone. Duke is dead and Nathan is gone; willingly or not, she isn’t sure, but either way, he is not here. She worked with Vince and Dwight to lure Croatoan to the old armoury, but the new barn didn’t hold and now Croatoan has sent Dwight away somewhere and who knows how long it will take him to get back. Croatoan has the controller crystal and she is out of options. 

So, she agrees to help him manipulate the aether, in return for him leaving Haven and leaving Haven alone; Trouble free. If she can still bring about an end to the Troubles then all this will not have been for nothing.

Standing in the centre of the old armoury, she begins to draw the aether toward her, arms raised to the sky as she slowly turns around. She tries to ignore the smug grin on her father’s face, tries to forget that he is standing next to her, tries to forget about Nathan and Duke and Dave and Jennifer and every awful thing that has happened and thinks only about the aether moving through the sky towards her.

When she sees Nathan standing in the doorway, the feeling of relief is palpable as she lets go of a doubt larger than she’d realised she was holding; the fear that he might have chosen to go afterall. 

She doesn’t anticipate the level of Croatoan’s anger at Nathan’s return and she can hardly believe it when he hurls a bolt of aether at them, leaving Nathan dead on the floor. Croatoan’s puzzlement at her insistence he fix Nathan is the final piece in the puzzle that tells her who Croatoan really is. He says he loves her, but everything he says he has done for her, has been for himself and his own ego. He would not sacrifice himself the way Nathan has, the way Duke has. She lets out a howl of rage and charges towards him. Time stops.

Croatoan, shaken and unable to deflect Audrey’s anger, walks past her frozen form to Nathan on the floor. He summons a Trouble to fix the damage the bolt of aether has done and then starts to turn back to Audrey before stopping to consider something else. He summons another Trouble (similar, just a little different), and closes his eyes in concentration again.

Duke Crocker’s body lies under a sheet in the crowded morgue, his aether-soaked blood still full of the Troubles Croatoan had sought to take from him. But now, the connection between the two of them lets Croatoan use the aether to do something else. Duke’s body glows from inside, lighting up the sheet in faint ripples through his body. It fades and the room is still and quiet for a moment. Then Duke sits up straight with a gasp, pulling the sheet from his face as he moves.

He doesn’t know how he got here, or why he is alone, then he remembers that he died and how. He remembers that Croatoan is setting out to destroy the town; he remembers everything. As he staggers outside, he sees a huge cloud of aether gathering in the sky, and finding his feet again, he sets out towards it at a run.

For Audrey, time starts again and she sees the look of concern on her father’s face before he shows her Nathan, recovered and getting to his feet behind her. As she hugs him with relief, Croatoan acknowledges that he would not die for her like that. But he agrees at last, finally, to leave them in peace; to leave Haven and, with nowhere else to go, to power the new barn that will end the Troubles for good. 

For a moment, Nathan dares to hope that it’s that simple; that they might actually have found a way afterall. It isn’t of course. Vince tells them he can’t do it with Croatoan alone and it becomes clear Audrey will need to join them in the barn. Saying goodbye to her is the hardest thing Nathan has ever done, but he takes his strength from her; her love for him, her love for Haven and her willingness to do whatever is needed to end the Troubles. 

He walks slowly down the steps with heavy feet and turns to face the building. He is alone; Duke is dead and Audrey is gone and he knows he will spend the rest of his life trying to live up to their memories. He watches in awe as aether streams into the old armoury from all around town, and in something between relief and fear as he sees his own Trouble leave his chest. 

Duke realises the aether in the sky is concentrated over the old armoury. It’s streaming towards the building from all over town and it looks like Haven is being emptied of its Troubles. Duke can’t tell whether this is something good, or a prelude for something very, very bad and he is not sure if he’s going to get there before it’s finished. He runs up the hill, legs working as he puzzles over the fact that no more aether has left him. But then it does, streaming out of him to join the rest. He has no way to stop it and the force of all those many Troubles leaving at once leaves him barely able to stand. 

When it is finally all gone and he starts running again he realises he is nearly at the armoury and he rounds the corner just in time to see Nathan stood at the bottom of the steps as the last of the aether flies into the building. Duke is about to call to him when the building glows, impossibly, with the power of the aether inside it and then suddenly implodes into nothing.

Duke collapses on the ground; he has seen a building do such impossible things before and he realises they did it; the old armoury has become the new barn. He is not tied to Croatoan any more, he is just Duke again; he can feel it. He tries to use the phasing Trouble he took from Hayley; nothing. It’s over; it’s actually over and somehow, he is here to see it.

***

Late afternoon the next day and Nathan sits numbly in the Gull. He could have gone to the station. He should have gone to the station; there were things to be done and he knew he should be doing them. And he would do them; he just needed to take a bit of time first. He’d needed to be alone this morning, but when he could bear that no longer had found himself making his way to the Gull without even really thinking about it. The place was pretty battered from the various disasters the Troubles had thrown at it in the last few days and it would be closed for business for a while. But he’d figured Duke would be inside, one way or another.

He’d opened the door, carefully, the remains of a pane of glass falling out and landing at his feet. The sound caused Duke to stand up from behind the bar, an annoyed Hey! forming on his lips, but it cut off when he saw it was Nathan. He’d pulled a miraculously-unbroken bottle of whiskey up after him and waved it at Nathan instead. 

Nathan had nodded gratefully and so now they sit on the floor, surrounded by broken furniture with their backs against the bar and the bottle of whiskey between them in a surprisingly comfortable silence. What was there left to say, afterall?

Except there was one thing Nathan needed to say. “Duke, you know I’m sorry, right? For what happened to you. It never should have …”

They turn to look at each other and Duke shakes his head, dismissing the need. “It’s OK Nathan. It happened, and you only did what I asked.”

“I know, but if …”

“Nathan …”

“... if I had just …”

“Nathan,” said Duke again, but now quiet, low and urgent; an aspect to his voice that silences Nathan. “Look,” adds Duke, and nods his head, looking behind Nathan towards the remains of the door he’d left open on his way in.

Someone is standing in the doorway. A woman, silhouetted against the remains of the daylight, but even so, they both know who it is. An impossible woman, a woman they thought they’d never see again. She takes a few steps forward and the light changes, so now they can see her face more clearly; a face they thought was lost to them forever. 

“Audrey?” Nathan breathes astonished, as they both scrabble to stand up. 

But Duke realises it isn’t, not quite. Her brown hair is cut short and half hidden by a soft, grey woollen hat. “Nate,” he says carefully. “I don’t think that’s …”

“I wasn’t supposed to remember,” she says. “I was supposed to have a new overlay personality. I wasn’t supposed to remember, but I do. I remember everything.”

“... Audrey,” Duke finishes in stunned realisation, never more happy to be proved wrong by Audrey Parker.


End file.
